Tag Archives: Santorum

Have you ever played Angry Birds? You know, that famous game that almost everyone seems to be playing on their iPads, iPhones, Android tablets, Kindle Fires, and Nooks. Well, I contend that the Republican Presidential Candidates are acting like those Angry Birds. If you don’t know the game, here’s the backstory: apparently some pigs have stolen the eggs of the birds, so now they are really angry. To get them back (Don’t laugh; this is true!) —they launch themselves via giant slingshot at the pigs in an attempt to destroy the pigs and get their eggs back. See, (to follow the analogy) the Republicans see Barack Obama as having stolen something they once owned–the Presidency, and they furiously and persistently aim to get it back. What’s curious, however, is instead of launching themselves at the President (though they occasionally do that, as well) they seem to be attacking one another on a more regular basis. Though instead of attacking President Obama, they’re attacking one another–fellow Republicans. This of course, violates former President Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.”

What are the Republicans saying about each other? Well, I scoured the Internet, and watched about 5-6 Republican debates over the last month or so (including the final two, yesterday and today) Here are the results:

ATTACKS ON RICK SANTORUM:

Rick Perry –Jan 2–In an interview with MSNBC, Perry said Santorum is a “serial pork-barrel earmarker” who has “proven he can’t win races.”

Mitt Romney—-Like Speaker Gingrich, Sen. Santorum has spent his career in government, in Washington,” Romney said during an event Saturday night in Atlantic, Iowa. “Nothing wrong with that, but it’s a very different background than I have.”

Michelle Bachman attacks Santorum—Jan. 1 ABC News

If you look at the spending issue, Sen. Santorum voted for the bridge to nowhere,” Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Santorum has stood for earmarks, stood for spending.”

Rick Perry attacks Santorum “Why was it important to vote for a Montana Sheep Institute?” Gov. Rick Perry said on “Fox News Sunday.

Jan2, 2012—Paul against Santorum–Before a rally at the Marriott hotel here, Paul charged that Santorum is “very liberal” because of his votes in Congress. “He spends too much money,” the Texas congressman said.

Jan 7—Paul attacks Santorum

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Paul, let’s stay on the issue of records. You’ve got a new ad up in South Carolina taking direct aim at Senator Santorum. You call him a corrupt — a corporate lobbyist, a Washington insider with a record of betrayal. You also call him corrupt in that ad.

Ron Paul–what really counts is his record. I mean, he’s a big government, big spending individual. Because, you know, he preached to the fact he wanted a balanced budget amendment but voted to raise the debt to five times. So he is a big government person.

Ron Paul—So you’re a big spender; that’s all there is to it. You’re a big-government conservative. And you don’t vote for, you know, right to work and these very important things. And that’s what weakens the economy. So to say you’re a conservative, I think, is a stretch. But you’ve convinced a lot of people of it, so somebody has to point out your record.

Ron Paul……back to Senator Santorum, you know, he ducks behind this — he’s for this balanced budget amendment, but voted five times to increase the national debt by trillions of dollars. This is what the whole Tea Party movement’s about…….When — I mean, government’s practically stopped over increasing the national debt. You did it five times. So what’s your excuse for that? That’s trillions of dollars. You kept this thing going.

MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) — Mitt Romney and Rick Perry on Wednesday assailed Republican presidential rival Ron Paul for saying the U.S. has no business bombing Iran to keep it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, drawing a sharp contrast with their rising rival as he returned to Iowa to campaign before the lead-off caucuses.

“One of the people running for president thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said in this eastern Iowa city in response to a question from the audience. “I don’t.”

It was the first time Romney has challenged Paul directly since the Texas congressman jumped in polls. Neither Romney nor Perry, the Texas governor, named Paul, but the target was clear.

“You don’t have to vote for a candidate who will allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Because America will be next,” Perry said in Urbandale, reiterating a line of argument from a day earlier.

“I’m here to say: You have a choice,” Perry added

Newt Gingrich, called Ron Paul’s views “totally outside the mainstream of every decent American” during an interview with CNN.

Gingrich said the primary is giving voters a “choice between a populist supply side approach … and a much more timid Washington-centered approach that will not create jobs.”

Bachmann, She accused Perry of spending “27 years as a political insider.” He was a Texas legislator and agriculture commissioner before becoming governor in 2001.

Bachmann said Paul would be “dangerous as president” because of his hands-off views on national security.

Rick Santorum told an Iowa crowd “he blamed Paul for automated “robocalls” that claimed he was pro-abortion and against the Second Amendment, The Huffington Post reported, both stances the social conservative says he is against.

Tuesday morning on “Fox and Friends,” Santorum said “Ron Paul is disgusting” for being behind the calls.

Newt Gingrich attacks Paul–Newt Gingrich, who Paul has been aggressive in labeling a serial hypocrite in previous ads, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday that he could not support Paul if he won the Republican nomination, adding his “views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.”

Rick Perry—During a midday campaign stop at an Italian restaurant, Perry accused Newt Gingrich of being the “granddaddy of earmarks” while he was House speaker. He also called Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) a hypocrite for condemning political gamesmanship while seeking federal funds for pet projects such as bike racks and “decorative street lights” in his district.

“For some people, earmarks have become an art form,” Perry said. “What we need is someone who will walk into Washington, D.C., and say no to all this special-interest funding.”

Rick Santorum—Jan. 8–Well, let me first address Congressman Paul, because the — the serious issue with Congressman Paul here is you’re right. He’s never really passed anything of any — any import.

And one of the — one of the reasons people like Congressman Paul is his economic plan. He’s never been able to accomplish any of that. He has no track record of being able to work together. He’s been out there on the — on the margins and has really been unsuccessful in — in working together with anybody to do anything.

The problem is that what Congressman Paul can do as commander-in- chief is he can on day one do what he says he wants to do, which is pull all our troops back out of seas, overseas, put them here in America, leave us in a — in a — in a situation where the world is now going to be created — huge amounts of vacuums all over the place, and have folks like China and Iran and others. …….

The problem with Congressman Paul is, all the things that Republicans like about him he can’t accomplish and all the things they’re worried about, he’ll do day one. And — and that’s the problem.

Rick Perry—Jan. 7– I mean, here’s what frustrates me, is that you go get the earmarks and then you vote against the bill? Now, I don’t know what they call that in other places, but, Congressman Paul, in Texas, we call that hypocrisy.

Newt Gingrich—Well, Dr. Paul has a long history of saying things that are inaccurate and false.

“Ron Paul came out swinging Wednesday against Newt Gingrich for calling him a dangerous candidate, dubbing Gingrich a chickenhawk who avoided the Vietnam War.”

“I don’t want to fight a war that’s unconstitutional and I’m the dangerous person? You know, when Newt Gingrich was called to service in the 1960s during the Vietnam era, guess what he thought about danger? He chickened out on that, he got deferments and didn’t even go,” Paul said on CNN later in the morning.

“So right now he sends these young kids over there to endure the danger, and the kids coming back, the young people coming back and the ones in the military right now, they overwhelmingly support my campaign. We get twice as much support from active military personnel than all the other candidates put together. So, Newt Gingrich has no business talking about danger because he is putting other people in danger. Some people call that kind of a program a chickenhawk and I think he falls into that category,” Paul said.

“ Ron Paul rolled out a hard-hitting TV ad in Iowa that uses Gingrich’s own words to accuse him of “serial hypocrisy.”

“If you want to put people in jail, let’s look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment,” Gingrich is shown saying in the ad. It casts him as a Washington insider who espoused conservative principles as House speaker only to profit from special interests when he became a high-dollar consultant.”

Mitt Romney attacking Gingrich —-“If the American people believe that what we need is someone who has spent the last 40 years or so in Washington, D.C., working as an insider, why, he’s the right guy.”

And Romney added: “America needs a leader, not someone who’s an insider.”

Wikipedia reported that on October 18, 2011 in Las Vegas, “Newt Gingrich was attacked by all the other candidates, squaring off in particular with Mitt Romney. Romney mocked Gingrich’s plan to build a lunar colony to mine minerals from the moon, saying that the real difference between the two of them was their backgrounds, saying “I spent my life in the private sector. I know how the economy works.” Gingrich replied, “Let’s be candid. The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedyin 1994“, which drew boos and laughter from the audience.”

Oct. 18, 2011—Debate–ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.

Romney against Santorum and Gingrich–“Like Speaker Gingrich, Sen. Santorum has spent his career in government, in Washington,” Romney said during an event Saturday night in Atlantic, Iowa. “Nothing wrong with that, but it’s a very different background than I have.”

Dec. 17—Wash. Post–Spencer, Iowa–Perry attacks Gingrich and Paul —During a midday campaign stop at an Italian restaurant, Perry accused Newt Gingrich of being the “granddaddy of earmarks” while he was House speaker. He also called Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) a hypocrite for condemning political gamesmanship while seeking federal funds for pet projects such as bike racks and “decorative street lights” in his district.

“For some people, earmarks have become an art form,” Perry said. “What we need is someone who will walk into Washington, D.C., and say no to all this special-interest funding.”

Ron Paul’s December 28 Ad–Paul attacks Romney and Gingrich—Politicians who supported bailouts and mandates (shows pictures of Gingrich and Romney) “Serial hypocrites and flipfloppers can’t clean up the mess.”

Romney attacking Perry–On Perry’s jobs record:from The Telegraph—California Debate, Sept, 2011“Texas is a great state. Texas has zero income tax. Texas has a right-to-work state, a Republican legislature, a Republican Supreme Court. Texas has a lot of oil and gas in the ground. Those are wonderful things, but Governor Perry doesn’t believe that he created those things. If he tried to say that, well, it would be like Al Gore saying he invented the Internet.” –Suggesting Perry was taken credit for events in Texas that he had nothing to do with creating.

Rick Santorum—about Romney, Cain, and Perry– Oct. 8, 2011 Debate—CNN transcript So you — you supported it. Governor Romney and Herman Cain all supported the — the TARP program, which started this ball……I mean, I — I mean, you guys complain about Governor Romney flip-flopping. I mean, look at what’s going on here. I mean, the — the bottom line is, you all supported it, you all started this ball rolling, where the government injected itself in trying to make — trying to fix the market with the government top-down trying to do it, and (ph) managed decline. And what happened was, people who did things that were wrong invested in things, took risks, were bailed out, and the folks who acted responsibly are now getting hurt because their houses have gone down in value. We need to let the market work, and that’s what hasn’t been happening so far.

Mitt Romney attacking Perry: And the reason we’re so animated about stopping illegal immigration is there are 4.5 million people who want to come here who are in line legally, we want that to happen in an orderly and legal process. And in terms of how to secure the border, it’s really not that hard.. And, Governor Perry, you say you have got the experience. It’s a bit like saying that, you know, the college coach that has lost 40 games in a row has the experience to go to the NFL

John Huntman –This Week—August 22, 2011About Perry’s comments on evolution and global warming “The minute the Republican party becomes the… anti-science party, we have a huge problem.” When you find yourself at an extreme end of the Republican party, you make yourself unelectable.

Mitt Romney attacks Perry–“Over the past decade, the number of illegal immigrants in Texas is estimated to have grown by 60 percent. Governor Perry should explain to the people of New Hampshire why he thinks their opposition to his liberal immigration policies means they ‘don’t have a heart,’ ” said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams, alluding to comments Mr. Perry made last month in a defense of his decision to sign the in-state tuition bill into law.

Michelle Bachmann accused Perry of spending “27 years as a political insider.” He was a Texas legislator and agriculture commissioner before becoming governor in 2001.”

Mitt Romney—Jan 8—I just think it’s most likely that the person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China.

On Mitt Romney’s jobs record:
“He did a great job of creating jobs in the private sector all around the world. But the fact is, when he moved that experience to government, he had one of the lowest job creation rates in the country. The fact is while he has a good private- sector record, his public-sector record did not match that. As a matter of fact, we created more jobs in the last three months in Texas than he created in four years in Massachusetts.”

“Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt,” said Mr Perry, referring to the former liberal Democratic governor of Massachusetts who lost the 1988 presidential election.

Mr Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, retorted citing the governor Mr Perry succeeded in Texas in 2000: “George Bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did, governor.”

(CNN) – Newt Gingrich took his condemnation of rival Mitt Romney to a new level Tuesday, saying the former Massachusetts governor was not being honest when claiming that he had no relation to a super PAC producing anti-Gingrich television ads.

“This is a man whose staff created the PAC and his millionaire friends fund the PAC and it’s baloney,” Gingrich continued. “He’s not telling the American people the truth. Here’s a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in Romneycare and puts Planned Parenthood in Romneycare and raises hundreds of millions of dollars and appoints liberal judges and wants the rest of us to believe he’s somehow magically a conservative.”

Gingrich said Romney needed to be honest with voters about his record.

“I think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney and not consultant-guided version that goes with talking points. I don’t think he’s being candid and that will be a major issue,” Gingrich said.

Dec. 16–Mitt Romney was asked by Chris Wallace last night about his flip-flops on gun and gay rights issues. Romney explained his position, and then Rick Santorum came after him.

“[He] ordered people to issue gay marriage licenses. And went beyond that. He personally, as governor, issued gay marriage licenses. I don’t think that is an accurate representation of his position saying tolerance versus substantively changing the laws.”—-Towleroad
Wikipedia–October 18, 2011 – Las Vegas, Nevada

Mitt Romney squared off separately with Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Santorum attacked Romney over his health care reform initiative in Massachusetts, saying, “You just don’t have credibility… your consultants helped Obama craft Obamacare.” Romney replied “the Massachusetts plan… was something crafted for a state… if I’m president of the United States, I will repeal [Obamacare] for the American people”.[22] Perry, whose performance was seen as an improvement over past debates, attacked Romney because he hired a lawn service using illegal immigrants; Perry said, “The idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.” Romney replied that after they found out the company used illegal immigrants, they let them go, criticising Perry’s tuition credit for the children of illegal immigrants, adding that “If there’s someone who has a record as governor with regards to illegal immigration that doesn’t stand up to muster, it’s you, not me.”

Newt Gingrich about Romneycare……… Oct. 8, 2011 Debate—CNN transcript..”But your plan essentially is one more big government, bureaucratic, high-cost system, which candidly could not have been done by any other state because no other state had a Medicare program as lavish as yours, and no other state got as much money from the federal government under the Bush administration for this experiment. So there’s a lot as big government behind Romneycare. Not as much as Obamacare, but a heck of a lot more than your campaign is admitting.

Rick Santorum- Oct. 8, 2011 Debate—CNN transcript -I didn’t run as a liberal in 1994. I ran in 1994, the same year Mitt did in Massachusetts. He ran as a liberal, to the left of Kennedy, and lost. I ran as a conservative against James Carville and Paul Begala, and I won.

In 2002, he ran as a moderate. He ran as a moderate in — in Massachusetts. I ran for re-election having sponsored and passed welfare reform, having authored the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Rick Perry about Romney– Oct. 8, 2011 Debate—CNN transcript They’re looking for somebody that they trust, that knows has the executive governing experience. I’ve got it. You failed as the governor of Massachusetts.

June, 2011—Tim Pawlenty”—–President Obama said that he designed Obamacare after Romneycare and basically made it Obamneycare,” the former Minnesota governor said on “Fox News Sunday

Rick Perry—-If you want to know how someone’s going to act in the future, look how they act in the past. I mean, so, Mitt, while you were the governor of Massachusetts in that period of time, you were 47th in the nation in job creation.

October 19, 2011–In Tuesday night’s Las Vegas debate, Texas Gov.Rick Perry answered a question about uninsured children in his state by attacking former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romneyfor once having undocumented immigrants at work on his lawn.

“And Mitt, you lose all of your standing, from my perspective, because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year,” Perry said, in a total non-sequiter.

Rick Perry—“I want to make a clear distinction between myself and Governor Romney,” Perry said, noting that the two were both serving as governors in the early 2000s. He had just wrapped up a description of how he cut the Texas budget by cutting spending before turning to the former governor of Massachusetts. “He took a different path. He scoured his tax code looking for those ways to increase corporate taxes rather than cutting the budget. He succeeded in finding the ways to raise taxes and he raised taxes by some 400 million dollars in Massachusetts,” Perry said. He said Romney, “put it on the backs of Massachusetts job creators.”

“Perry quoted from a Forbes article about Gingrich’s speakership that said both federal spending and debt increased during his tenure, and that one of the ways he balanced the budget was by employing “shameless accounting gimmicks” like borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.”

“Those of you who are wondering what happened to the Social Security trust fund? Here’s part of it right here,” Perry told the crowd.

Washington Times—Oct. 28—Perry attacking Romney–The idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is, on its face, the height of hypocrisy,” Mr. Perry said.

Mr. Perry labeled Mr. Romney a “finger-in-the-wind” politician, after he appeared to suggest he would not take a position on a controversial referendum in Ohio that would limit collective bargaining rights of public employee unions.

SuperPac Ad–Huntsman attacks Romney–“Two serious candidates remain,” the narrator says after images of the GOP’s onetime front-runners flit across the screen, ending in a dual shot of Romney and Huntsman. “One willing to say anything, be anything, one who can actually do the job.”

After touting Huntsman’s job creation record in Utah, the narrator of the Our Destiny PAC concludes: “One state can stop the chameleon.”

Paul’s December 28 Ad–Paul attacks Romney and Gingrich—Politicians who supported bailouts and mandates (shows pictures of Gingrich and Romney “Serial hypocrites and flipfloppers can’t clean up the mess.”

Associated Press | Posted: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 —Newt Gingrich called Romney a “Massachusetts moderate who, in fact, is pretty good at managing the decay.” He said the ex-governor has “given no evidence in his years in Massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or change the political structure.”

Newt Gingrich called Mitt Romney a “liar” on CBS News Tuesday morning, a couple of days after he said he was “Romney-boated” by what he said are $3.5 million attack ads by political groups supporting the former Massachusetts governor.”He’s not telling the American people the truth. It’s just like his pretense that he’s a conservative,” Gingrich said. ” Here’s a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in ‘Romneycare,’ puts Planned Parenthood in ‘Romneycare,’ raises hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes on businesses, appoints liberal judges to appease Democrats, and wants the rest of us to believe somehow he’s magically a conservative.”

Oct. 8, 2011 Debate—CNN transcript.—Santorum –The final point I would make to Governor Romney, you just don’t have credibility, Mitt, when it comes to repealing Obamacare. You are — you are — your plan was the basis for Obamacare. Your consultants helped Obama craft Obamacare. And to say that you’re going to repeal it, you just — you have no track record on that that — that we can trust you that you’re going to do that. …..What you did is exactly what Barack Obama did: focused on the wrong problem. Herman always says you’ve got to find the right problem. Well, the right problem is health care costs. What you did with a top-down, government-run program was focus on the problem of health care access. You expanded the pool of insurance without controlling costs. You’ve blown a hole in the budget up there. And you authored in Obamacare, which is going to blow a hole in the budget of this country.

Jan. 8 Debate

Newt Gingrich–And I think that a bold Reagan conservative, with a very strong economic plan, is a lot more likely to succeed in that campaign than a relatively timid, Massachusetts moderate who even the Wall Street Journal said had an economic plan so timid it resembled Obama. So I think you’ve got to look at — you know, Massachusetts was fourth from the bottom in job creation under Governor Romney. We created 11 million jobs while I was speaker, and I worked with Governor — with President Reagan in the entire recovery of the 1980s. So I just there’s a huge difference between a Reagan conservative and somebody who comes out of the Massachusetts culture with an essentially moderate record who I think will have a very hard time in a debate with President Obama.

Rick Santorum–Well, if his record was so great as governor of Massachusetts, why didn’t he run for re-election? I mean, if you didn’t want to even stand before the people of Massachusetts and run on your record, if it was that great, why didn’t — why did you bail out?……..I mean, the bottom — the bottom line is, you know, I go and fight the fight. If it was that important to the people of Massachusetts that you were going to go and fight for them, at least you can stand up and — and make the battle that you did a good job……..Governor Romney lost by almost 20 points. Why? Because at the end of that campaign, he wouldn’t stand for conservative principles. He ran from Ronald Reagan. And he said he was going to be to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights, on abortion, a whole host of other issues.We want someone, when the time gets tough — and it will in this election — we want someone who’s going to stand up and fight for the conservative principles, not bail out and not run, and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy.

Newt Gingrich—-…Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is, you ran in ’94 and lost. That’s why you weren’t serving in the Senate with Rick Santorum. The fact is, you had a very bad re- election rating, you dropped out of office, you had been out of state for something like 200 days preparing to run for president. You didn’t have this interlude of citizenship while you thought about what you do. You were running for president while you were governor. You were going all over the country. You were — you were out of state consistently. You then promptly re-entered politics. You happened to lose to McCain as you had lost to Kennedy. Now you’re back running. You have been running consistently for years and years and years. So this idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind, just level with the American people. You’ve been running for — at least since the 1990’s.

Jon Huntsman attacking Romney–After Romney said, “I just think it’s most likely that the person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China.” Huntsman fired back, “This nation is divided, David, because of attitudes like that. (APPLAUSE) The American people are tired of the partisan division. They have had enough.”

Newt Gingrich attacking Romney– But if you look at “The New York Times” article, I think it was on Thursday, you would clearly have to say that Bain, at times, engaged in behavior where they looted a company, leaving behind 1,700 unemployed people. That’s “The New York Times.”

Moderator—Speaker, you — you — you decry the Washington establishment and you just talked about “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post.” You have agreed with the characterization that Governor Romney is a liar. Look at him now. Do you stand by that claim?

NEWT GINGRICH—Well, sure. Governor, I wish you would calmly and directly state it is your former staff running the PAC. It is your millionaire friends giving to the PAC. And you know some of the ads are — aren’t true. Just say that. It’s straightforward.

Jan. 7 Debate

Rick Santorum attacking Romney Well, business experience doesn’t necessarily match up with being the commander-in-chief of this country.

Rick Santorum–I don’t think Governor Romney’s plan is particularly bold, it — or is particularly focused on where the problems are in this country

Jon Huntsman–he doesn’t quite understand this situation. What he is calling for would lead to a trade war. It makes for easy talk and a nice applause line but it’s far different from the reality in the U.S.-China relationship.

Well, there it is! An prodigious collection of quotations, perhaps a few of which may one day make it into Bartlett’s. “No big deal!” you say. “They’re all running for the Republican nomination, so they’ve GOT to attack each other!” Not really. In Republican primaries in the not-too-distant past, Republicans focused their attacks on the Democratic President or anticipated Democratic nominee! This year (and it seems that they are continuing a recent trend), they are levying their attacks on their fellow Republicans. Of course, when the primaries are over, and a Republican nominee is selected, I anticipate that the Republicans will rally behind that Republican nominee. Yet, we have to ask the question: Will that be too late? Will these Republican Angry Birds have given the Democrats and President Obama too many lines, too many quotations, too many attacks that will be turned against the nominee of the Republican Party. Time—as always–will tell!

Tim Tebow Before Being honored at halftime during the Dec. 23, 2007 Jaguars/Oakland game

Welcome back to This Week With Mitch Grosky. This week I’ll focus on three stories: News, Sports, and Entertainment.

We lead off this week with a quick look at the results of this week’s Iowa Caucases, What did I think? Well, Romney’s win wasn’t very surprising, but by only EIGHT votes………that’s incredible–the closest victory in any major Republican or Democratic Party contest–a great example for our kids on how every vote counts.

Rick Santorum, the former Senator from Pennsylvania came in second, right behind Romney, but many people consider his virtual tie with Romney a moral victory since he was in single digits just three weeks ago. So, now it’s Santorum who has the “big mo”–momentum—on his side. Most political pundits, however, think that he doesn’t have the organization or the money to take advantage of that momentum. Time will tell.

In third place, also with a very strong showing, was Texas Congressman Ron Paul. His libertarian philosophy is striking more of a chord with people this time around. Still, most of the experts think there’s no way he can win. What really hurts him is those 8-10 outrageous and bigoted quotes from the Ron Paul newsletter and his outright refusal to consider taking military action if Iran gets a nuclear weapon. That’s a position virtually no Republican—or Democrat agrees with.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich finished a distant third. It’ll be interesting to watch him at this weekend’s debates up in New Hampshire. It was really obvious that he was furious with Romney because of Romney’s SUPER-PAC ads. I’m actually surprised he’s not more ticked off at Ron Paul who called him a serial hypocrite in his ads.

Texas Governor Rick Perry almost dropped out this week after finishing way back in the Iowa Caucuses. I personally think he should have stayed in Texas because I really don’t think that he can get people to forget some really bad debates, and especially that big Oops moment—when he couldn’t name the third agency of the three that he wants to eliminate. That is just the kind of gaffe that will go down in history like Nixon sweating against Kennedy, like Romney’s father, George Romney, saying that he’d been brainwashed, or like Gerald Ford saying that there wasn’t any Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

Michelle Bachmann………well, she joins Herman Cain and Tim Pawlenty as also-rans. What about Jon Huntsman? Well, since he chose not to compete in Iowa and only got 700 votes, we’ll have to wait and see if he can get any traction up in New Hampshire. My guess, not so much!

Moving on to sports………. My New England Patriots have a bye this week, and I’ll have to keep an eye on this weekend’s games to find out if they’ll be playing Cincinnati or Pittsburg next week. At least, I’m glad that Brady and his banged up team will get some rest this week. Brady is having another fantastic year, but then again, so are Drew Brees and Aaron Rogers. Matthew Stafford too! Oh, speaking of quarterbacks, I have to get in a Tebow comment before it’s too late. Look, the Broncos are going to lose to the Steelers this weekend……….after all the Broncos lost their last three games, and Tebow was 19 of 51 for a grand total—a grand total of 245 yards in those three games. What about the Steelers? Well, they’ve only been in 3 of the last 6 Super Bowls, and they won two out of those three. They’re right up there with the Patriots since the new millennium started. But what I really wanted to say about Tebow is this: Give the kid a break, will you? He is just a kid—just graduated—-and almost everyone says he’s a super kid–kind, decent, hard-working, talented–a great college quarterback if not yet a great or even good pro quarterback. But he works incredibly hard, he’s a leader, and he’s doing his best. Oh, and he’s religious, strongly religious………and that’s a good thing too. He prays and gives credit to God. He kneels down in prayer at the end of each game. So what? He’s not forcing you or anyone else to kneel down. He’s not hurting anyone. He’s sincere in his beliefs. Since when is that a bad thing? There are many people—Christians, Jews, Muslims—who admire him for that kind of dedication to his religions. So, cut him the same slack as we do when we see countless sports interviews where the first words out of the mouth of the guy who’s getting interviewed is: “I want to thank God …….or Jesus Christ…..or Allah for this victory.” He’s a real good kid who may never be a very good pro quarterback unless he develops his arm and his accuracy, but he’s a kid that most parents would be proud to have in their family.

And finally, some entertainment news–admittedly a bit of fluff that maybe hasn’t yet reached your radar screens yet. Kim Kardashian’s in the news again. According to E-On-line, apparently there’s going to be a line of Kardashian Barbie Dolls—–based on Kim and her sisters Khloe and Kourtney. Just a guess, but it’ll probably hit the shelves by next Christmas. . . for no more than 72 days. It seems like a lot of people are pointing to the fact than even though Kim earned about 12 million bucks last year, she only paid one percent more in taxes than a secretary earning about 45 thousand dollars….. Only one percent more! Does this seem fair to you? Apparently not to some people in California who are trying to raise taxes on its wealthiest citizens.

Well, that’s all for today. Join us again soon for more politics, sports, entertainment, and commentary. This is Mitch Grosky for This Week with Mitch Grosky. If you get a chance, please check out my photography website at www.mrgroskyphoto.com. And if you like photography, please consider “LIKING” my facebook photography page at https://www.facebook.com/mitchell.r.grosky.photography.